Paralympic athlete Jason Smyth will perform with professional dancer Juliia Vaslyenko on Sunday's Dancing with the Stars on RTÉ One and the RTÉ Player because Smyth's regular professional dance partner Karen Byrne is ill this weekend.
Announcing the news, Dancing with the Stars said: "Jason and Juliia will dance Paso Doble in Sunday night's show to the Bryan Adams classic Run to You.
"Karen will hopefully return to the programme as soon as she has fully recovered."
"Juliia is a 30-year-old former Ukranian Latin American dance champion who joined the show as an additional dancer for Season 7," Dancing with the Stars continued.
"Juliia has danced competitively for over 25 years. In 2022, Juliia and her family fled Ukraine due to the ongoing war and the attacks on her home city of Odessa, leaving behind her community and dance company, Fantasy, which she owned."
"I am very grateful to the people of Ireland and Dancing with the Stars for giving me such a great opportunity and chance to show myself," said Juliia Vaslyenko.
"I fell in love with the Irish people and really want to stay here. I came here with my whole family. I have two children, who are two and four years old, and I really want to do everything to make my children happy in this country and live in a safe place."
Dancing with the Stars, Sundays, RTÉ One and RTÉ Player, 6:30pm
